It flew in 1966, crashed in 1967, and was rebuilt for more tests.
M2 was a lifting body testing shuttle handling at trans-sonic speeds from 1966-1967. Asset was the name for half a dozen launches in 1963-1965 of small Dynasoar models testing aerodynamics and thermal protection. It was cancelled in 1963 as too expensive. It was to be launched by Titan 1 rocket, but never was flown. The X-20, flown from 1960-1963, was a design for a small military suborbital and orbital shuttlecraft called Dynasoar. Among a dozen X-15 pilots was Neil Armstrong who later became the first man on the Moon and Joe Engle who flew an actual space shuttle. It flew at speeds up to Mach 6.7, reaching an altitude of 67 miles in 1963. rocket aircraft launched 199 times from under the wing of a converted B-52. A number of experimental prototypes were flown before the American shuttle fleet was built, including the X-15 which was tested from 1959-1968. While the X-15 didn't fly to space, didn't drop a satellite, and the Air Force shelved the plan in 1965, the idea of a reusable space shuttle hung around.įorerunners. 
The X-15 would continue on to space, drop off a satellite in orbit and fly back down to Earth. The idea was to bolt an unmanned X-15 to the top of a B-52 and fly it as high as the plane could go.įrom that altitude, near space, the pilot would launch the unmanned rocket plane. The Air Force had its B-52 bomber and an experimental rocket plane known as X-15. Air Force came up with the first concept for a winged spacecraft – a space shuttle – in 1962.
Space shuttle Challenger in orbit above Earth in 1983 History Of Space Shuttles: Remembering the fleet of U.S.
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